How Much Baggage is Enough?

There was an O-mazing quote in an article in a recent Sunday New York Times that got us thinking. The article was an interview with Mara Arena Bell, the former head writer for “The Young and the Restless” (favorite soap opera in the college years!) who was very rudely and unfairly fired from her job. She is 50 years old, and she had to reinvent herself. “The plot twist: while initially floored by her dismissal, Ms. Bell quickly picked herself up. She could have bitterly retreated to her Beverly Hills mansion, the way so many shunted people in Hollywood do. Instead, she accepted life on life’s terms, and charged into a new chapter.”

Her new chapter-- start her own production company, a dream she’d had for her entire adult life. The idea brought out in this great story-- “accepting life on life’s terms”--reminded us of one of the cool quotes that inspired our Ossential card cases, “Simplicity is making the journey of life with just baggage enough.”

There are people who we see both in our everyday lives and in images who just make it look easy, all the time. They effortlessly juggle the same responsibilities and expectations that we constantly struggle with-- or at least it seems that way to us!

But of course we have no way of knowing how heavy the “baggage” is that they are carrying. Huge handbags weigh us down, and we can see (and fix!) that. But how much are we all carrying around in silent surrender-- that isn’t visible to the naked eye but makes our massive handbags look like feathers in comparison? For Maria Arena Bell, her “just baggage enough” meant accepting her circumstances and using that baggage to fuel her fire and motivate her. To us this begs a question-- what part of life’s terms do we need to accept in our lives, and how do we decide for ourselves how much baggage is enough?

Clearly the Big O was designed to help us literally reduce our baggage. But consider the bigger picture-- if we start with our handbags, can we move on to pursuing simplicity in our lives? Can we shed the baggage that hunches us over and keep just enough to motivate us and inspire us as we “accept life on life’s terms”?